Kristen Bell will be returning next year as amateur sleuth Veronica Mars for a movie that picks up where the TV series of the same name left off in 2007. Why? Because the fans have demanded it.

Kickstarter has been the darling of the so-called crowdfunding phenomenon for the last couple of years, having helped launch everything from innovative gadgets to theatrical productions to clothing lines, music, comics and more.

But no film-based Kickstarter campaign has caught fire like the one that's now pushing a Veronica Mars movie from the realm of wishful thinking to a 2014 release.

When they launched the campaign on Wednesday, Bell and Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas had been hoping to raise $2 million in fan-based funding over the course of 30 days. As of this writing, the movie has received more than 44,000 online pledges totalling nearly $2.7 million. In less than two days. And the numbers are still rising fast.

On the movie's Kickstarter.com page, which features a sly video starring Bell, Thomas and Veronica Mars castmates Ryan Hansen, Jason Dohring and Enrico Colantoni, Thomas says he'd approached Warner Bros. years ago about making a big-screen continuation of the WB series, which ran for three seasons.

The studio wasn't interested, but when Thomas asked if he'd have Warner's blessing if he could demonstrate fan desire for the movie, "Their reaction was, 'If you can show there's enough fan interest to warrant a movie, we're on board,' " Thomas says. "So this is it. This is our shot."

Fans can pledge a minimum of $10 to the campaign, which gets them a digital copy of the shooting script when the film is released. But larger pledges come with greater rewards, all of which are limited in number and nearly all of which are already sold out. For instance, 100 backers have paid $400 apiece to have Kristen Bell and Rob Thomas follow them on Twitter for a year. Another 100 have paid $500 for Kristen Bell to record an outgoing message on their voicemail.

A $1,000 pledge has netted 100 backers two tickets to the Hollywood red carpet premiere. Three people have paid $8,000 apiece for the privilege of naming a character in the movie. And one superfan has forked over $10,000 for a one-line speaking role. As a waiter.

All this for a film that's yet to shoot a single frame.

Kickstarter as a movie funding tool - at least for movies with established, expensive talent - is less about raising capital and more about gauging the interest of fans who are willing to put their money where their mouth is. Will the success of the Veronica Mars campaign lead to other fan-favourite films and TV shows coming back? There are 2.7 million reasons, and counting, to think that's entirely likely.

But for every Veronica Mars jackpot, there are a dozen tiny films seeking modest amounts, many of which simply don't generate enough support to get off the ground. At the risk of stating the obvious, you can't have crowdfunding without a crowd.